This brick and cement monument in our nation's capital is a remarkable institution and a truly impressive architectural conception. It is a treasure trove of documents, photographs, recordings and a scholar's dream of organization, with state-of-the-art storage and access to archives detailing the atrocities committed and the shameful role of active accomplices as well as indifferent nations.
Unfortunately, the Museum has become politicized and trivialized by a succession of terrible choices in directors and board members who have implemented appalling policies. In its effort to "universalize" persecution and suffering, the museum has hosted exhibits that have nothing to do with the extermination of the Jews. Arafat has been a guest and its speakers have included authors who have compared Israel's treatment of its Arab population to the racist laws of Nazi Germany.
The most recent president, Rabbi Yitzhak Greenberg, has further sullied the museum by using his office and museum stationery to issue an appeal for the pardon of Marc Rich. We would suggest that the Museum be funded independently, and that its purpose should be solely as a memorial to the victims of the Shoah. For starters, lawyers who enriched themselves with recent suits on behalf of Holocaust victims could apply the millions collected to that effort.
A ten month old baby girl sitting in her stroller next to her father was killed in Hebron on March 27, 2001. This was not a casualty of crossfire, nor a child willfully brought to a riot. Little Shahlevet was in a playground full of small children, waiting to play in a sandbox. A cursed Arab terrorist fixed the child in his gun-sight and fired deliberately. Where is the outrage? Where are the headlines?
During the Lebanon War, a wounded child held in her father's arms became the "poster child" for criticism leveled at Israel. The photo was a front page story everywhere. George Shultz, America's Secretary of State during that period, stated that he was appalled by that photo, and called on Israel to stop its invasion. Secretary Shultz later apologized when it was disclosed that the captioned child was a victim of an accident far removed from Israeli gunfire. Nonetheless, the damage had been done through headlines sizzling with indignation at Israel's supposed cruelty in maiming this small child.
More recently, a young boy was killed in the crossfire between Arab rioters and Israeli soldiers. The front pages of all our national journals, as well as every single news show, mounted the episode time and time again. Another "poster child' for the Arab cause. It was later revealed that the boy's father deliberately brought him to the scene of dangerous confrontations. Arabs routinely expose their young to enemy fire and rioting. A previous article in Outpost quoted extensively from the New York Times Magazine, which detailed the deliberate martyrdom of Arab children, even by their own parents. In a situation where children are sent to riot, throw stones, maim and even kill, there are casualties among them.
But when an infant is sitting in a playground, and she is shot, there can be no moral equivalence. But if the Arab "poster children" were phony symbols of alleged Israeli brutality, the murder of Shalhevet Pass, the little girl who died, is a true emblem of Arab evil. The vicious man who shot her represents the hatred and inhumanity of so much of the Arab leadership and the "Arab street" in which that hatred is inculcated and eventually spirals out of control. But don't expect the media to recognize any of this any time soon.
It has become traditional in our April issue to commemorate the Shoah and to remind ourselves of the awesome fact that the Nazis and their willing accomplices murdered one of every three Jews in the world.
Today, the largest Jewish population in the world resides in America, enjoying the blessings and the riches of this great nation. The second largest Jewish population in the world resides in Israel, a democratic and thriving society continually endangered by the surrounding enemies whose avowed purpose is the extermination of all the Jews who live there. It is a chilling thought and one that should galvanize Diaspora Jews to redouble their effort to support, defend and strengthen Israel.
In our opinion, anything but unflinching solidarity with the people of Israel from the cities within the so-called Green Line to the towns of Golan, Gaza, and Judea and Samaria constitutes abandonment. Any compromise on Jerusalem and Hebron is a victory for those who continue to debate the legitimacy of the state. Israel, a strong, impregnable Israel, is the only true tribute to the martyrs of the Shoah. Memorial institutes have a role to play, but in the end monuments are just brick and cement.
Hiram Bingham was the son of a United
States Senator from Salem, Connecticut, who became a
career diplomat. He was posted as vice consul in Marseilles, France from 1939 until 1941. Against
the strict warnings of the State Department, he issued thou-
[(Continued on p.11)]
Outpost - 10 - April 2001